The subject matter herein relates generally to cable connector assemblies.
One type of electrical connector used in current electrical connections is configured to receive a mating edge of a circuit card or circuit board. The electrical connector may be termed a “straddle mount” or “board edge” connector. Typically, the electrical connector includes contacts that are biased against contact pads or conductors exposed on the surface of the mating circuit card to form an electrical signal path between the electrical connector and the circuit card. Optionally, the electrical connector may be a cable mount connector, such that the contacts are terminated to center conductors in one or more cables that extend from the electrical connector away from the circuit card. In some applications, the electrical connector and the attached circuit board form a subassembly for a further device in a broader communication system, and the one or more cables connect to another component in the communication system. One such use for the electrical connector is in the assembly of memory cards or other electronic devices.
As speed and performance demands increase, known electrical connectors are proving to be insufficient. Additionally, there is a trend to decrease the contact pitch between the contacts and between the contact pads in order to increase the density of the electrical connector and reduce the amount of area on the circuit card that the electrical connector covers. For cable mounted electrical connectors, each of the center conductors of the cables that terminate to the contacts of the electrical connector is typically covered in an insulative layer. The cables may be co-axial cables that include a conductive outer shield, an outer jacket, and possibly one or more other layers. Due to interference from the layers of material surrounding the center conductors of the cables, two adjacent center conductors may not be physically able to terminate to adjacent contacts that are spaced apart by a fine contact pitch. As a result, the size or gauge of the center conductors and/or of the cables may be limited to a small gauge or diameter in order to support the tighter pitch of the contacts and contact pads. However, smaller gauge conductors typically produce significant signal loss that increases (for example, gets worse) as the length of the cable used to convey the signal increases, due, in part, to the limited amount of conductive material through which the signal propagates. Thus, since the gauge of the cable conductors is limited for space reasons, the cable mount electrical connector may be limited to applications where the distance of the signal path is short enough to prohibit the negative effects of signal loss. A need remains for a cable mount electrical connector that is able to connect larger gauge center conductors of cables to narrow pitch contact pads on a mating circuit card to reduce signal loss over longer transmission distances.